


How I Learned To Stop Worrying

by mightyscrub



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:21:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7927555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightyscrub/pseuds/mightyscrub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A non-mgs verse modern au where The Boss and Strangelove meet in a lesbian motorcycle gang and years later reunite when Strangelove is a single mom.  Yup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I asked for prompts and the fabulous Gingey, aka zeonsucks @ tweeter and televangelionist @ tumbl, requested bosslove. jessamineattano on the tubblr also requested bosslove. Anyway, this monster fic of self-indulgence emerged.
> 
> There is some angst and conflict, but rest assured, this is 100% a happy ending fic.

Strangelove had been divorced for almost a year when she answered the front door expecting a sales pitch and instead found the love of her life on her welcome mat.

For a long time she simply stood there in the doorway holding the door open, thankful for her sunglasses because her eyes must have been the size of saucers… What was it about Joy that turned her into such an ungainly childish thing?

Joy looked strangely regal (or perhaps that wasn’t strange at all), in a slim white leather jacket with her hands in the pockets. She was older now. They both were. There were lines around her eyes, and her hair was long, a few waves falling over her cheek, escaping her ponytail. She smiled, small and thin.

“I’m sorry… I should have called ahead. I didn’t know your phone number but I could have found it out.”

Strangelove shook her head, desperately trying to find some moisture in her throat to get her speech to working.

Hal beat her to it.

He let out a hiccupping wail from the living room.

“My son,” Strangelove said apologetically. Her eyes shifted behind her sunglasses. “I’ll just… Come in, Joy. Come in.”

She left the door open in Joy’s hand and hurried to where Hal was nestled in a fort of blankets and pillows on the sofa, just woke up from his nap. He was… well. He was an ugly child, frankly. He had licks of dark hair plastered to his lumpy head and a face that still looked more alien than human. But Strangelove loved his ugliness.

She had never penned herself for a mother, and even now she must have looked terribly out of place. She was in a nice blouse and vest, having just got off a video conference call with her employer, and when she scooped Hal up to her chest his lolling head on her shoulder knocked her earring. She looked more like Hal’s CIA bodyguard than his mother.

Even worse, Strangelove had always hated children.

But this was different. This was her son, and it was like her body already knew how to bounce him gently. She had worried she would be a terrible parent, that the exhaustion she felt rather than affection when he was first born was a dark omen. But children had a knack for worming into your heart, didn’t they? That must be their appeal.

Joy had entered, closed the door behind her, and now she stood a fair distance away in the open division between the living room and the entryway, watching Strangelove’s back. Strangelove hesitated to turn around. There was so much to catch up on between her and Joy, so many sudden possibilities, and yet Hal existed now and that could be quite the roadblock, couldn’t it? Would Joy disapprove?

But the fact of it was, Joy had competition now for the most important person in Strangelove’s life. She held Hal closely, wrapped haphazardly in his blanket, and planted a kiss on the side of his head to steel herself.

She turned around.

“Kitchen,” she said, nodding in the general direction. “I’ll make you some tea.”

“No need,” said Joy. “I’ll make it. You’ve got your hands full.”

Strangelove didn’t argue, but she was terribly chagrined. In her own house, she followed Joy and sat at the small kitchen table while Joy experimentally opened overhead cupboards before finding the tea. She didn’t ask which tea to make from Strangelove’s copious collection, just picked one. Strangelove wondered if she’d chosen based on what she wanted or what she thought Strangelove would want.

Or completely randomly. Sometimes Joy was like that.

“You’ve still got the same kettle,” Joy said as she plugged it in. It was an ancient electric thing, straight from Strangelove’s college days.

“When you’ve found the perfect one, you keep it,” Strangelove said, bouncing Hal lightly in her arms. He was falling asleep again. Good boy.

As they waited for the water to boil, Joy crossed her arms and leaned back against the kitchen counter, watching Strangelove carefully. Strangelove cursed that she’d chosen to sit down… but it was the most comfortable way to hold Hal. He was a big child, with an enormous melon of a head. Hence the c-section.

Was Joy looking at Strangelove or at Hal? It was hard to tell… Either way, Joy finally turned her head as if suddenly interested in the peeling wallpaper.

“I guess I have some explaining to do,” she said.

“As do I…” said Strangelove. “When did you get back from the Middle East?”

“Two years ago.”

“… Oh.”

To think, Joy had been back in America for so long and Strangelove hadn’t even known. Did that mean she was stateside when Hal was born? Best not to ask questions like that…

Strangelove cleared her throat. “The elephant in the room is mine, though. I have a son now.”

Joy nodded slowly.

“Are you surprised?”

Joy turned back to her, and there was something distant in her eyes, a sadness that Strangelove didn’t recognize. But after a moment she smiled, small again but falling across her expression like blinds, a shield of affability. 

“Men have never been to your taste,” Joy said.

“Not at all. It’s why I’m divorced already.”

“You were married?” Some actual amusement was bubbling up.

“Can you believe it? Well… We thought it would be best for Hal, financially speaking. I was the one who couldn’t stand it.”

“His name is Hal?”

Strangelove adjusted her son in her arms, his head knocking her chin. “Yes.”

“So you still like sci-fi movies.”

The kettle whistled and Joy got to pouring their mugs with efficient carefulness. She deposited the teabags with a flick of her wrist, and brought the drinks to the table… Earl Grey. How classic.

“Milk please,” said Strangelove, hooking her mug closer with a finger, and obediently Joy went to the refrigerator as if this was her own kitchen and brought over the whole carton.

Finally, Joy sat.

“Thanks for not kicking me out,” she said, in a slow way as if picking her words judiciously. “I don’t really have a good reason for showing up like this. I guess I just missed you, Jack.”

Strangelove smiled as she poured her milk one-handedly, and a breathy laugh came out.

It had been a long time since someone called her Jack.

x

Before she was Strangelove, she was Jacqueline. What a pretentious girl she was… The sort of child with an immense vocabulary and yet she mispronounced the words because she only read them never heard them. Even into her teens she was not exactly socially adept, and yet she had enough pride to power the entire East Coast. She stubbornly never let go of her accent after moving to America.

It was the result of a childhood indoors, perhaps. Her albinism made her prone to both sun sickness and weird looks from her peers. Children were always honest about mean things.

As such, she grew up a computer worm and a reader and rather abrasive to hide the fact that she really was quite alone.

With nerdy interests, it was no wonder she wound up attracted to counterculture. It was inevitable, really, that she would break her mother’s heart somehow, but she had always expected the obvious reasons like her mathematical expertise or her lesbianism... Nope. The nail in her mother’s coffin was the motorcycle gang.

Of all places, Jacqueline met The Boss at a bowling alley.

She was 21, in a prestigious undergraduate program and bored out of her damned mind. With few friends, she often came to this bowling alley not to bowl but to indulge in the only arcade games in town. They had an oldschool Space Invaders and that was all she needed in life.

One night the place was almost empty, and then abruptly the manager went skulking off frantically, and Jacqueline raised an eyebrow at him before the reason for his ire came into her view. An entire squadron of young women had arrived at the front desk… and they looked like troublesome young women.

Jacqueline’s favorite type.

They all wore leather jackets in varying colors, some with studs and fake gemstones, others with chains and emblazoned badges on the back. Scuffed jeans and doc martins were everywhere, and there was even a pair of pink cowboy boots in the mess of legs. The leader of this troupe had a starkly white jacket and short dirty blond hair hanging just under her ears… she stood still and stoic, speaking calmly to the poor pale fellow behind the counter. In contrast, another girl who seemed to be her second in command kept circling her and posturing. Also blond, the hair all piled on top of her head, this girl wore a neon pink jacket and when her back turned to Jacqueline there was something written across it in Chinese, above a black rose.

Jacqueline craned sideways from behind Space Invaders to try and get a glance at the leader’s back.

The white jacket had a gaudy rainbow peace sign, between spikes on the shoulders.

How tacky.

But Jacqueline smiled.

The girls got their bowling shoes, laughing and ribbing each other as the big clunky boots came off, and a couple of the younger-looking underlings picked up the beer and nachos as the troupe went and chose their lanes. When they walked past Jacqueline, she hid behind her game, head down. She wasn’t usually so shy, but the commanding presence of these girls made a blush rise up her neck.

They were everything she wanted to be.

Out of the corner of her eye, somewhat obscured by the arms of her sunglasses, she watched the girls split up into two teams.

The leader in the white jacket, Madam Peace Or Whatever, lounged across the cushions boyishly, legs crossed, arms flung across the back as if surveying her kingdom. Her hair was a choppy mess, as if she’d cut it herself, but she wore it like a crown. In profile, her jaw was masculine but a black beauty mark just above the curve of her upper lip gave her a somewhat Marilyn Monroe charm. Her makeup was light, but her mascara fanned out her eyelashes across the laugh lines around gray eyes…

Jacqueline stared, until abruptly Madam Peace glanced over and met her gaze.

Jacqueline looked away immediately, but she knew she’d been caught. With a thick swallow, she fed a few more quarters into Space Invaders and hunched over to play, eager to ignore the entire building despite her pulse pounding in her cheeks.

It was no use. Her fate was sealed.

The pink-jacket second in command came swaggering over, hands in pockets, and slouched against the side of the machine, jostling Jacqueline’s game.

“Hi,” said Pink Jacket.

“Hello,” said Jacqueline very sternly without looking away from the pixels on the screen.

“My name’s EVA.” Her makeup was far more energetic than her boss’, caked on in excess, but she wore it with confidence, this smoky-eyed siren with glinting blue eyeshadow and pink cheeks.

“Yes, hello.” Jacqueline’s game was faltering. She missed an alien.

“ _I wear my sunglasses at night_ ,” EVA sang. “Is something wrong with your eyes?”

“They’re just sensitive.”

“Sorry.”

“What do you want?” Jacqueline’s self-confidence felt so utterly fake in the presence of this woman, and her weakness manifested as testiness.

But EVA only smiled, red red lips. “We’ve got an uneven number,” she explained. “Wanna come play a game with us?”

Jacqueline shot a few lack-luster lasers then finally let her hands still at the controls, watching the aliens approach her defenseless spaceship…

“It’s just bowling, hun,” said EVA at the same moment that Jacqueline said, “Alright.”

EVA grinned.

She led Jacqueline back to the lanes, where the girls were chattering and picking out their bowling balls.

“Alright, Boss, I got that girl you wanted,” said EVA, patting Jacqueline on the back (Jacqueline stiffened) and plopping into a chair.

The leader smiled, and now that Jacqueline was standing right in front of her, it was impossible to ignore how utterly attractive she was. This woman was not only Jacqueline’s type. She was the archetype that all women fitting Jacqueline’s type could only hope to recreate.

She leaned forward, her white jacket shifting as her arms came to perch on her knees. “I’m The Boss,” she said.

With gestures at the assorted girls, she started introductions.

“You’ve already met EVA.” EVA made a peace sign.

“This is Quiet.” Quiet was the only one wearing a denim jacket and it had flowers stitched into it… It was also rather small, as if it had been a little girl’s jacket before being repurposed for sexier attire.

“Us three are the old vets… You’ll be on our team. Over there are the younglings, The Rat Pack, who have us outnumbered.”

Four girls, probably still in high school, were huddled around the beer giddily and waved.

“That’s Rat Queen.” A boyish redhead.

“Mrs. Roboto. She’s Chinese not Japanese but it’s a joke.” A girl with a very sweet face who seemed to have already downed her first cup of the Budweiser.

“Fortune.” Black with hair dyed an impressive seafoam green and fingerless gloves.

“And finally Naomi, who’s too much of a stick in the mud for nicknames.” She looked Indian and also mildly annoyed.

The Boss smiled, a sneering smile but her eyes glinted with a sort of cheerful benevolence that made Jacqueline’s shoulders lower somewhat from their tense position.

“My name’s Jacqueline,” she said, sticking her chin up.

The Boss’ smile went smaller and a bit warm. This smile was all Jacqueline’s.

“Thanks for joining us, Jack.”

Somewhat anti-climactically, they bowled.

The girls were fiercely competitive, and Strangelove found herself thankful for her surgeon-like hand-eye coordination. She was the best on her team, at least after The Boss, and quickly EVA started to like her and sling an arm around her shoulders every time she made a strike. Quiet was also friendly but didn’t seem to talk… ever. 

Jacqueline watched from the cushions, EVA pushing a cup of beer into her hands, as The Boss went up against Rat Queen. There was an elegance to the way The Boss moved, an easy strength and lazy femininity, so sure of itself but with no need to brag. The hem of her peace-sign jacket hung just over her rump, but when she bent over to bowl, long legs tensing, the stitching on the back pockets of her jeans was revealed. Cobras. She had cute little cobras on her ass.

Jacqueline was watching when EVA elbowed her and her grip had to tighten on her beer lest it sprinkle her lap.

“You come here often?” EVA asked. It was hard to tell whether she was flirting or whether she was just always like this.

Jacqueline’s nervousness had effectively transformed into a practiced arrogance. It was not ideal but… well. It was Jacqueline.

“I come here for the video games, honestly,” she replied. “Bowling is a hokey sport and only lowlifes and drunks show up to play it at this time of night.”

Instead of being offended, EVA just grinned and continued to like her. On EVA’s other side, Quiet ate nachos with gusto.

“Too posh for bowling, huh? I guess then you wouldn’t like motorcycles.”

“Motorcycles?” Jacqueline repeated, as The Boss rolled a perfect strike.

“Yeah. We all have bikes.”

“So… you’re a gang of some sort?”

“Something like a gang, yes,” said The Boss, as she strolled back over with a roll of her hips, her fingers flexing as her token green ball rolled up the return machine. She sat on Jacqueline’s other side, the beltloop of her jeans brushing Jacqueline’s hip on the way down, and Jacqueline almost gulped audibly. “A sisterhood but also… What’s the right word?”

“Dikes with bikes?” suggested Rat Queen from the other lane.

The Boss smiled and made a finger gun with her hand. “Yes. That’s it.”

Dikes with bikes. “So… You’re all--?” Jacqueline raised her beer to her lips in forced casualness.

“Queer as hell? Yes!” said EVA.

The Boss watched as Jacqueline drank. “Does that make you uncomfortable, Jack?”

“No. No, of course not. It’s simply… well, not everyone is open about it in these parts.”

“It’s easier with a gang,” said The Boss.

“I imagine it is,” said Jacqueline softly.

EVA patted her back. “You’re up. Take it home.”

Lord, Jacqueline had completely lost track of the game. She left her beer in EVA’s care and stood, heading for the red ball that had been treating her so well thus far. When she glanced up at the scoreboard, she realized this was the last turn of the game. The scores were very close… but if Jacqueline got a strike, her team was guaranteed to win.

Was The Boss watching her? A woman interested in other women. Jacqueline had never been so attracted to someone who was actually… possible?

But then again, how could the enigmatic and elegant Boss be possible for a gawky faker like her?

 _Stop it, Jacqueline, you’re only bowling_ , she told herself.

She was up against Fortune, who approached the lane with her arms in the air as the Rat Pack cheered and whooped for her. Both women crouched with their balls, sneering at each other in a familiarity that had already developed in such a short time playing against each other.

“Go get ‘em, Jack,” said The Boss.

And Jacqueline’s heart did something very strange indeed just then, a sort of flip flop into her throat, and she completely choked.

She did not make her strike.

Furthermore, her ball went straight into the gutter.

Fortune, living up to her namesake, downed all her pins and ran crowing to the arms of her triumphant comrades. They’d effectively won. Everybody knew the math. Even if Jacqueline got a spare, she still couldn’t win. But she still had a roll left.

Utterly enraged with herself, she stormed back to the return machine, refusing to look at The Boss, and rolled her last ball flippantly. She got a good number but it hardly mattered. Not even a slightly redeeming spare.

The two teams were cajoling one another and patting each other’s backs, and Jacqueline approached with a red face and her arms crossed protectively over her chest. Arrogance again, her only defense. She opened her mouth to say something horrible, probably a lie about how she’d twisted her ankle wrong or something, but then a hand fell on her shoulder.

She expected EVA and shot an appropriately dry look.

But it was The Boss.

“Thanks for joining us,” she said, smiling as if she hadn’t noticed Jacqueline’s ire, or maybe even because of it. “You’re pretty good at games, aren’t you?”

“Pretty good,” Jacqueline agreed dumbly.

The way The Boss was looking at her… did she know? Could she sense Jacqueline’s queerness or even her attraction?

EVA, bless her, arrived for a high-five. “A+ Jack, glad to have you! If you ever get a hankering for motorcycles, let us know.”

The next sentence was probably the best decision of Jacqueline’s life. “Um, yes, well,” she said. “I do enjoy bikes. There’s a certain charm, right?”

As if expecting that, The Boss asked: “Want to come with us?”

Everyone was sort of crowded around now, and Jacqueline was suddenly aware of being the center of attention.

“Come with you?” Why could she only repeat everything like some great oaf?

“Around this time of night when everything closes, we just ride and hang out,” The Boss explained. “There’s an underpass we like to meet under. We’re headed there now, and you can come with us if you like.”

Jacqueline had never wanted something so desperately in her life, and for a split moment all she could think to say was No, because she was frightened. It wasn’t safe to want things, to ask for too much. Surely all Jacqueline really needed was her degree and her lonely Space Invaders game over there in the corner…

But she was looking straight into The Boss’ kind eyes, and something in there fortified her.

“Well, I suppose I have nothing better to do…” she said with terribly fraudulent coolness, and to her surprise everybody cheered.

They wanted her?

EVA even gave her a large hug as they all started back to the front desk to intimidate their shoes out of the bowling guy.

Out in the parking lot, in the cool night, their motorcycles stuck out like a line of sore thumbs. They were all sleek black bikes, varying models but with the same stickers above the back wheel—Cobras or Rats.

Jacqueline realized she didn’t have a bike at about the same time The Boss handed her a helmet. The helmet actually said The Boss on it.

“You can ride with me,” she said, her lips quirking as she mounted her bike helmetless.

So Jacqueline did. Somehow, she didn’t die when she climbed up awkwardly behind The Boss and wrapped her arms around the other woman, tight under her bosom…

Honestly, everything next was bliss. The roar of engines, the fresh smell of the night, the girls shouting and whooping at each other, and the warmth of The Boss’ back, Jacqueline’s face pressed into the peace sign.

When they stopped at a red light, Jacqueline gazed up at a black sky that seemed even more endless than usual.

“You like stars, Jack?” The Boss asked quietly, only for her, and a shiver ran through the exhilaration in Jacqueline’s heart.

“Yes,” she said honestly. “I’m going to work for NASA someday.”

“A genius!” Boss exclaimed, without any irony or sarcasm.

“Oh stop…”

She stayed up absurdly late with those girls, in their little underpass hideaway, eating melted pocket candy bars and exchanging stories. They got on the topic of sci-fi movies and Jacqueline quickly became the expert orator, rattling off trivia with much pomp and circumstance and impressing everyone about 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the early morning hours, when it was finally time to disperse, The Boss took Jacqueline’s wrist and raised it up like she was presenting a champion.

“She likes Kubrick,” Boss proclaimed, “so her name will be Strangelove.”

“Here here!” Everyone clapped and the newly christened Strangelove blushed deeply.

She had an official nickname… Yet the mischievous glint in Boss’ eye said maybe “Strangelove” wasn’t only referencing Kubrick. Well. If Jacqueline couldn’t always be openly lesbian, surely Strangelove could.

The Boss drove Strangelove home, and Strangelove went to bed dizzy, like after a first date.

x

Many years later here they were in Strangelove’s kitchen, with cooling tea between them and Hal snoozing against his mother’s chest, drooling a wet patch at her shoulder.

Hal – the son she’d had with a man. A man Joy had never met and Strangelove didn’t even like.

There had been such a distance between the two women for so long, so much bitter heartache piled up in Strangelove’s chest, so many questions, and yet here they were talking about none of that, only laughing about the good old days. That was more important for them right now.

“Inseparable,” Joy proclaimed, and in a charming gesture she picked up her mug, forgetting for the second time that she’d already emptied it.

“I was your shadow, you mean,” Strangelove said dryly, smirking.

“If so, I certainly put a lot of effort into impressing something attached to my own foot.”

“Oh stop.”

They puffed out a few laughs apiece, the quiet rumble of comradery dying into an awkward but not unpleasant silence. Strangelove picked at her mug with the nail of her thumb. It was still mostly full of cold tea. Some motherly instinct had prevented her from drinking something hot over Hal’s sleeping form…

She cleared her throat and pushed her chair back with her legs, getting to her feet.

“I’m going to get him back on the sofa before my arms lose all the blood in them,” she said, rubbing his back gently. 

“Oh… Right.” It was as if Joy had momentarily forgotten Hal was there, and that brief darkness from before fell over her expression again. Was it jealousy? No… It seemed more sad than insidious. She stood as well, taking the two mugs to the sink automatically.

Strangelove took her time to the living room, rocking slightly for Hal’s sake, but also distracted by her own thoughts. Her head was full of two girls on a motorcycle, doing every inane thing together through Strangelove’s college years… A younger Boss curled up on Strangelove’s desk chair, as Strangelove plugged in the electric kettle for tea… Nights of riding fast with endless stars overhead.

She knelt by the sofa as she swaddled a sleepily squirming Hal up in blankets, bordering him on each side with pillows so he wouldn’t roll off the edge. A tender and systematic protection. His cheeks dimpled as his mouth worked absently.

She kissed his warm sticky forehead, a sudden pain in her chest.

She started back to the kitchen just as slowly, now with a certain pressing dread, but Joy was already waiting for her in the entryway, hands in pockets. This white leather jacket was so similar to the one The Boss wore, but there were no studded spikes, no gaudy peace sign. Her face was older now, still kind but no longer eager.

That darkness in her eyes… It was fatigue, wasn’t it?

“I should head out,” Joy said, her voice very soft.

Strangelove smiled briefly, nodding. She was still walking, one slow step in front of the other. Closer.

She took one last step into Joy’s space, their chests close, and stared ahead at Joy’s neck rather than look up and risk bringing attention to the proximity of their lips.

Joy smelled clean, plain. There was an indescribable whiff of something always in her jacket, the smell of her home, some distant thing Strangelove recognized but couldn’t pinpoint. It was overwhelming in its nostalgia.

Strangelove took a deep breath and nodded again, like a damned bobble head. Her nose was so close to Joy’s collar.

But Joy, in her endless patience, was just standing there waiting for Strangelove to do what she needed to do, and… Strangelove didn’t have the courage.

She sighed and took a step back.

“Will you come back?” she asked, smiling crookedly with all the faked coolness she could muster.

Joy didn’t smile, her eyes holding Strangelove’s for a moment, flickering briefly around her face. Instead she nodded.

“Yes. I’ll…” Abruptly she brought out a hand to reach into her jeans pocket instead, pulling out a clunky old cellphone. “Your phone number?”

“Oh. Right.” Strangelove got her phone as well and they exchanged numbers, awkward and having to smile again purely at their own clumsiness. An air of that shared quiet laughter returned.

By the time Joy left they were both smiling, tentative but excited, like schoolgirls.

Strangelove clutched her phone to her chest after closing the door.

She could almost feel the painful topics they’d avoided gnawing at the edge of her brain, but for right now… For right now, she wanted to cling onto this hope for as long as she could.

Hal slept peacefully until supper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All credit for Strangelove’s name goes to the ever fantastic thelonebamf whose idea hat is unparalleled.
> 
> Eva’s pink jacket comes courtesy of succulentrobotass (… that’s a mighty strange sentence)
> 
> Joy’s characterization was inspired a lot by technicolor_werewolf, you should check out her Cobra stuff for much Boss appreciation \o/


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some quick notes:
> 
> This story went from 3 chapters to 5, whoops, I'm falling down the rabbit hole of this ship
> 
> I misplaced The Boss' birthmark in chapter 1 wheeze. So for the sake of continuity it's still in the wrong place, above her lip. I'm sorry. I've misinterpreted The Boss' will I've--
> 
> I'm not sure how Strangelove's albinism works when she has a birthmark? You might notice I've taken small liberties.
> 
> Tl;dr the birthmarks are killin me smh ANYWAY I hope you enjoy chapter 2 x)

It was unexpected and charming to see Joy utterly thwarted by a diaper.

Hal was on the living room floor on a towel as Joy kneeled over him. She was expectedly unsqueamish about removing the dirty diaper and all that entailed but now seemed deeply perplexed by how to replace it. She was turning the new diaper in her hands slowly, with a blank expression yet someone who knew her, like Strangelove, would recognize this hesitation could only mean absolute bewilderment.

To make matters worse, Hal kept reaching his hand between his fat legs and fiddling with his bits. Joy frowned ever so slightly—her version of embarrassment.

Strangelove however smiled. She was having the time of her life watching this.

“The first thing I learned was that babies are not remotely pure creatures,” she said, finally taking mercy on her old friend and kneeling beside her. She was in dress pants after a business luncheon, and so this kneeling was exactly what Joy had so considerately offered to avoid, but Strangelove didn’t actually mind. She let Joy be chivalrous more because she liked this rare chance to be doted on than because it was necessary.

Their shoulders brushed, and Strangelove tried not to think about how big and full that made her heart feel, the two women curving over her son.

“Stop that, you fiend,” Strangelove said, batting away Hal’s hands, but there was no venom in her voice at all and Hal smiled gummily up at her, distracted by his mother’s attention. She expertly took his ankles in her hand and lifted his newly cleaned rump just slightly off the towel.

“The wide end goes, as expected, under his wide end,” Strangelove explained. Joy took the instruction with relief but dexterity, sliding the new diaper under him. It was mostly easy to guess from there and Joy sank back into her usual pattern of being naturally good at everything. Even so, Strangelove would remember this moment. There were things even Joy didn’t know.

With the professionalism of many diapers under her belt, Strangelove tied off the old grocery bag where they had deposited the used diaper and wipes and brought it out to the trash. When she returned, Joy was staring down at Hal, her hands in her lap as if afraid to touch him. Joy had been visiting regularly for a number of weeks now, but she was still decidedly awkward around Hal sometimes, not from distaste Strangelove had decided but from some sort of trepidation Strangelove didn’t fully understand.

Hal didn’t mind, and was putting on a show of kicking and wiggling.

Joy smiled down at him thinly, lips pulling taut at premature lines. She seemed far away.

Strangelove cleared her throat. It had gotten clogged up with emotion watching this.

“I’ll just…” She approached awkwardly and bent to scoop him up under the armpits. “Can’t stay on the floor forever,” she said lamely, holding him to her chest.

She didn’t want to make it too obvious she was rescuing Joy from the prospect of holding him. Whatever aversion Joy had to children, Strangelove had been tiptoeing around it expertly, the same way they were still tiptoeing around a lot of things with each other.

She plopped down onto the sofa with him gurgling in her lap.

Serenely, Joy sat beside her. She stretched an arm across the sofa’s back, one of her casual boyish gestures, and her hand came tantalizingly close to Strangelove’s space.

The television was still playing the old movie they were only half watching to begin with ( _Robinson Crusoe On Mars_ ), and Hal seemed determined to remain in the spotlight, reaching up to pat at his mother’s cheeks.

“Darling boy, you were just touching your wiggler,” Strangelove chastised, bouncing him on her knees.

Joy poked her shoulder with a finger. “You certainly do talk mean to him,” she said, but she was smiling, more genuinely now.

Mission accomplished.

“What, he can’t understand it,” Strangelove said. With her hands firmly holding his back and head, she tipped him backwards, his big gray eyes widening but then squinting into one of his pug-ish smiles as he laughed wetly. “Oh goodness, mum’s going to drop you oh no!” she said teasingly, and with full control tipped him back and forth. She pulled him up one last time to her chest, his fingers clambering at her buttons and his smile huge. “Oh what a relief! Imagine all the paperwork if I’d dropped you.”

“Terrible,” said Joy.

Had she leaned closer? Strangelove was all at once aware of the smell of an unfamiliar soap, Joy’s warm skin. Joy had abandoned her white leather jacket—it hung on one of the kitchen chairs in the other room—and the collar of her t-shirt perched on the hollow of her throat. It was a faded and raggedy t-shirt, one Strangelove recognized with glee from The Boss’ days, and Strangelove had already noticed with painful longing how very soft it looked.

Yes, Joy was leaning very close. A long curl of her hair fell across Strangelove’s shoulder.

Hal, however, was determined in his attention-seeking. Now he turned his melon head to Joy and grabbed at her with pudgy fingers, wobbling in Strangelove’s embrace. He made a series of eager clicking sounds.

Joy looked… lost. Something about her expression hurt Strangelove deeply in a way she didn’t understand. She just sat there frozen at Strangelove’s side, staring down at Hal as if he was incomprehensible. He raised a hand to Joy’s chin, index finger poking her birthmark above her lip, and she reflexively smiled, but her eyes were dark.

Gently and subtly, Strangelove pulled Hal away. She pushed her sunglasses up on her hair and that always got Hal’s attention, his gaze immediately meeting his mother’s pale eyes.

“He looks terribly like his father already,” Strangelove said, desperate to change the focus point. “Awful. But Hal will be a better man.”

“So there are actually good men in your book?” Joy leaned her head against the back of the sofa, resting on her own arm.

Strangelove laughed self-deprecatingly. “Sure. Why not? Huey just wasn’t one of them.”

Hal was blinking slowly up at her, always so fascinated and delighted by his mother’s eyes. Babies were somewhat like dogs, with this easy unconditional love. Strangelove never liked dogs because she felt she never deserved that sort of love. But she would do her damnedest to keep that wonder on Hal’s face, even if he did have his father’s nose, his dark hair. She didn’t want him to grow up with Huey’s hopeless, dour expression.

“Heaven forbid he’ll need glasses…” Strangelove murmured.

But as Joy had said, she was only being mean.

She would always love Hal, no matter what.

x

EVA never stopped being The Boss’ right hand man in the motorcycle gang, but Strangelove became…

Well. She became The Boss’ girlfriend.

It was a gradual evolution of a thing, Strangelove spending more time with the girls and then beginning to notice small moments of permanence. She still rode behind The Boss, but she got her own helmet, one that the girls graffitied with a combination of sharpie signatures, doodled boobs, and Lisa Frank stickers (from Quiet). The Boss began leaving things in Strangelove’s dorm room—preferred snacks, video games, and finally her own toothbrush. For a birthday, The Boss bought Strangelove her own leather jacket, a bright red one. Strangelove began painting her lips the same color.

She was one of them, and that dual sense of belonging and ownership existed long before the first time The Boss kissed her.

It was everything Jacqueline had ever wanted, and it lasted for years.

One night, late, during their delinquency hours, the girls were all bullying some free sodas out of a series of vending machines (it became a test of strength, who could kick the hardest), and the unofficial leaders of the gang were huddled together, a natural division they made. In the past these huddles must have only been between The Boss and EVA, but now Strangelove was tacitly accepted into the circle.

If EVA was The Boss’ right hand, Strangelove was the left.

“You graduate soon don’t you, Strangelove?” EVA asked somewhere in the conversation, nursing a Mr. Pibb.

Strangelove frowned down at the red smear she’d made on her own soda can’s lip, rubbing the lipstick stain with her thumb. “Yes, and I’d rather not think about my senior paper thank you.”

“But the point is: what’s next? You going to graduate school? You going to space?” EVA was never jealous of Strangelove’s proximity to The Boss, and in fact these questions were asked with utter genuineness and pride. EVA had become a very loyal friend.

“I’m not sure,” Strangelove said, with a shrug of one shoulder. The future had always been so concrete in her mind, she’d always known the path of her career, but that had been before she fell in love, hadn’t it? She wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore, except for these moments to last forever.

The Boss smiled at both of them benevolently.

“Are you going to be an astronaut, Jack?” The Boss pressed, but she was more teasing, giving Strangelove her conversational space if she didn’t want to answer seriously.

“God no,” said Strangelove. “I’m more fit for working behind the scenes. Someone else can man the spotlight. I’ll just support them with what I have.”

“You have a lot,” EVA said earnestly. “I’m no fortune-teller, but I foresee a bright future.” She made a wiggly motion with her hand with faux mysticism, grinning. “Go and get famous.”

“No good scientist wants fame,” Strangelove scoffed. And like a wave gently pulling back to reveal the shore, she realized what she did want, most of all. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said with finality. “Wherever my career heads… It’s important but not the most important thing.”

She chugged her soda to cover up how very much she was exposing herself, but EVA only clapped her on the shoulder with a bright “Here here!”

And The Boss watched her, smiling, before taking Strangelove’s soda away and stealing a swig, her lips pressing to the red of Strangelove’s lipstick.

A bright and engrossing future was one thing, but nothing beat a future where you weren’t alone.

x

Joy stayed the evening and watched from the doorway as Strangelove gave Hal a bath in the cramped tub. It seemed whenever Joy visited, Strangelove forgot to change out of her work clothes, and she was noticing that with regret now, her sleeves rolled up and the first few buttons of her blouse undone because the warm water made the room stuffy (and also because maybe she wanted Joy to see her bosom, just a little).

She sat on the closed lid of the toilet and held Hal upright as he splashed clumsily, cupping water to pour gently over his hair. He liked water and got noisy in the bath, a Blud Dud Dah sort of gibberish.

At one point she couldn’t reach a towel and Joy helpfully stepped forward to retrieve it, and in that moment that both women were crouched by the tubside, Hal slapped his hands enormously and sprayed them both with water. He giggled at their wet faces.

“I’m sorry he’s a monster,” Strangelove muttered, genuinely embarrassed.

But Joy was smiling fondly. “He reminds me of you,” she said.

Strangelove brought Hal-con-towel to his crib in her bedroom, toweling him off, getting him swaddled up in delicate footie pajamas with little robots on them (a moment of weakness for Strangelove). Joy had some time to towel off herself as Strangelove coaxed Hal to sleep, but by the time Strangelove left the snoozing child to find her friend again, her own open blouse was still wet and her work clothes were a general mess.

Joy was hovering near the sofa, as if not quite sure whether to sit down. She was examining a series of photographs at the top of a short bookshelf. They were almost all college friends and work colleagues. None of Strangelove’s family.

Strangelove was very aware of her shirt sticking to her bra. It was cold.

“I’d have more of the girls, but we never took many pictures did we?” she said, trying as always for coolness.

Joy looked up. “The girls?”

“The gang, Joy, of course. The Cobras, The Rat Pack.”

“It would be a piece of history, to be sure.” Joy’s eyes trailed her up and down, and the back of Strangelove’s neck went very warm. “You’re a mess aren’t you, Jack.”

“A struggling single mother,” Strangelove said with fake pathos, crossing her arms to minimize how ridiculous she must look.

Joy came closer, until she was just a good step away, and reached forward to straighten Strangelove’s lapel.

Why did this shirt have to be white? Of all wet shirts in the universe, it had to be a white one.

Strangelove willed herself not to move or pull back.

Joy met her eye and there might have been a glint of… Daring? Amusement? Something that reminded Strangelove painfully of the old Boss, a chink in the distance between them.

“Do you remember what we used to do in my dorm room?” Strangelove asked boldly.

“Ah yes. Your single. You convinced them your albinism meant you couldn’t handle a roommate.”

“I do enjoy benefitting from the ignorance of others.”

Joy’s gaze was steady, just like every aspect of her. She didn’t glance away or blush at the memories Strangelove was sure she too must be sifting through, those nights of giggling fumbling on a tiny dorm bed. Sweet kisses. And nastiness, honestly. The foreplay was sweet, but the sex was proudly debauchery.

“Yes, I remember,” said Joy.

Her hand was still drifting near Strangelove’s throat, and then a beat later her finger lowered to hook upon the topmost clasped button at Strangelove’s chest. It was almost an idle gesture, her thumb circling the button as if more interested in that than the fact her forefinger’s knuckle was snug against Strangelove’s bra clasp.

Strangelove swallowed.

“Joy?”

“… What do you want me to do, Jack?” Joy’s gaze was searching, quietly intense. Strangelove had to keep fighting to match it, to keep upright and not melt away into the carpet forever.

“I’d like you to kiss me,” Strangelove said, and somehow her voice only shook a little.

With a straightforward simplicity that only The Boss could manage, Joy did.

It was gentle at first, to Joy’s credit, but they had been dithering around each other for so long now that it quickly became, shall we say, less gentle.

Strangelove’s wet blouse was the first thing to go.

x

Years ago, pressed chest to chest, the dorm bed too small so they had to loop their arms around each other and hold on tight… Breathy laughter, The Boss’ hand slipping between Strangelove’s thighs. Strangelove had shaved just for her, and was a little annoyed The Boss had no comment for that prim little patch of light hair, but then The Boss’ fingers were slipping wetly, exploratory, seemingly more interested in feeling out the soft folds of Strangelove’s labia than in aesthetics.

“Oh honey,” Strangelove huffed ridiculously into The Boss’ cheek.

“You’re calling me honey now?” The Boss’ cocky smile, too close to really see, but Strangelove could hear it in her voice.

The hard tap of a blunt fingernail against the edge of her clit.

“ _Joy_.”

It was the first time Strangelove had dared to use Joy’s real name, and it was somewhat a joke, a challenge, and yet…

It was also terribly intimate, moaning “Joy Joy” as she came undone around rough fingers.

x

They were kissing quite thoroughly on the sofa now. With Hal asleep upstairs, Strangelove’s bed was off limits, but here they could fumble and tease all they wanted.

Strangelove wanted this to go all the way, and then some. Her shirt discarded, she was vulnerable in just a black bra, skinny and pale with birthmarks and imperfections pocked here and there, the only color her body would allow. But nudity was also power wasn’t it? Surely this would all be familiar to Joy. Surely even though they had both aged, that map, the constellations of Strangelove’s body, hadn’t changed. And perhaps it would still be… desirable?

Strangelove pulled back to unhook her bra, but suddenly Joy stopped her, with a gentle hand over her own.

“You don’t want any more?” Strangelove asked, hating how absolutely crestfallen she sounded.

Joy’s bottom lip was flush and plump, having been sucked and worried by Strangelove’s teeth. She was still fully dressed, but she wasn’t wearing a bra, Strangelove had noticed that all day and it had only become more apparent with some flustered groping over her t-shirt.

“I forgot. There’s something I need to tell you first,” Joy muttered. “It might be… a little shocking.”

With impressive steadiness, or perhaps just her usual intense desire to fulfill Joy’s needs, Strangelove let her hands fall and waited for Joy to speak.

Joy’s eyes trailed to Strangelove’s stomach. “You’ve got a scar,” she said.

Strangelove was so used to seeing it in the mirror every morning that she’d forgotten this was a major difference in her body—her c-section scar. Automatically she looked down at herself, at the thin line like a smile tucked under her stomach, slightly folded in on itself. With vanity she had been treating it with lotions, but it was still noticeable.

“Do you dislike it?” Strangelove asked, feeling very much like she wanted to cover it with her hands but refraining, standing her ground.

“Nothing like that, Jack,” said Joy gently. “It’s just. Well. I have one too.”

This information didn’t quite process.

With a look of resignation, Joy pulled her t-shirt slowly over her head. Her breasts fell gently, framed by little stretch marks like crow’s feet. But that’s not where Strangelove’s eyes went.

Curling up her stomach and just encroaching her chest was an enormous scar, like a puckered snake.

Strangelove took a deep breath as Joy let her t-shirt fall to the floor.

“What is that?” Strangelove demanded. She had stiffened, inexplicably alarmed. Was this from the battlefield? Had Joy been _hurt_ during all that time they were apart, had she _suffered_ while Strangelove had gone about her days not even knowing?

Joy traced the scar on her own belly with her thumb. “It’s from a c-section just like yours,” she said finally.

Somehow that was the last possible explanation Strangelove was preparing for. It hadn’t even occurred to her, not remotely.

“You… had a child?” she asked, shoulders sagging, oddly winded.

“Yes,” Joy said, so very directly. “A son, like you.”

Strangelove ought to be jealous but all she felt was a sick inferiority.

“… His father?”

“I met him in the military. We weren’t exactly planning it. He’s dead now.”

“Did you…?”

“Love him?” Joy knew her so well. She smiled and it was terribly sad. “I don’t know, Jack. I really don’t.”

Strangelove had always known Joy was bisexual, that wasn’t an issue. But ridiculously, selfishly, she hadn’t imagined that Joy would have met someone else, would have developed feelings for them while Strangelove was dithering in the U.S. pining endlessly and shacking up with some deplorable man just because she wanted some meaningless _something_.

Strangelove, Jacqueline… In the end, she was still just a petty little girl.

She shook her head. “Where’s your son, Joy?”

“I don’t know,” Joy said, very softly.

Strangelove frowned, and her childishness finally stepped aside and she could see clearly that things were very wrong.

“What did they do to you?” she asked. “That’s not a c-section scar… That’s a butchering. How can you not know where your son is?”

Suddenly she imagined what her life would be without Hal and her stomach dropped.

“Mistakes happen on the battlefield. It’s such a different world, with different priorities… It’s not so strange, really, that entire people can fall between the cracks and get lost. My son is somewhere. Some orphanage probably. He’s not in the warzone at least and… I suppose I just hope that he’s alright.”

“That’s not enough, Joy!” Strangelove was angry, righteously angry and it was all the more absurd that she was here sitting in her bra. “How can that be acceptable? You didn’t even get maternity leave? Surely that violates—“

“I was in some deep things, Jack,” Joy interrupted. Her face was hard.

There was so much Strangelove didn’t know. “But… But even so… Surely you have rights, don’t you? They can’t just use you like some tool.”

“It’s not right,” Joy agreed. “But in a way I consented to it. It’s the sort of life I chose at that time.”

“And now?”

“I’m here aren’t I?” Joy sounded annoyed, and finally Strangelove tried to calm herself. Joy seemed to do the same, because when she spoke again it was almost gentle. “I’m tired now. I think now I just want peace.”

“Have you looked for him?” Strangelove couldn’t help but ask.

Joy shook her head. “Even if I knew where my son was, I’m not sure I could truly be his mother.”

This pain, the distance in Joy’s eyes…

Had The Boss been defeated? Was that even possible, that the world could be so diabolical that even that great spirit could get tempered down?

Strangelove felt very naïve, naïve and sad.

“… It must be difficult for you to be around me and Hal. When your son is gone.”

“Yes,” Joy said honestly. “And no. It’s hard, but I think I’m happy to see you so…” She puffed out a little laugh, a moment of bizarre self-deprecation. “I think you and Hal were made for each other. I’m glad about that, I enjoy being able to witness this part of you.”

Her face was all fondness, and it hurt Strangelove that after everything she’d been through Joy could still find a corner of her heart for this strange little two-person family Strangelove had started.

Maybe that was all that mattered right now.

Slowly, so Joy could stop her again if she wanted, Strangelove raised her hands and unclasped her bra, pulled her arms through and letting it fall to the floor near Joy’s shirt. Joy watched, eyes tracing Strangelove’s breasts, expression unreadable.

“Thank you for telling me,” Strangelove murmured. She was leaning forward, tentative but determined. “We should talk more about this, whenever you’re ready but… For now, let’s just be happy, Joy.”

Joy watched her face now, met her eyes, and complied by leaning forward the last few inches to kiss her.

They pressed together, the brush of breasts and soft stomachs. She couldn’t feel it specifically in the thrumming haze of all these gentle touches, but Strangelove imagined their scars slotting together side by side, face to face.

Their kisses grew deeper, the wet aggression of tongue, and then Strangelove was taking uncharacteristic control, trailing lips down Joy’s chest, unzipping her jeans. It was strange but necessary now, to have The Boss under her will.

After receiving stuttering permission, she was nuzzling the hair between Joy’s legs, pulling apart her lips in tiny motions and pressing kisses there, then tongue, flat and firm against Joy’s labia and deeper into warm wetness, a sharp taste in Strangelove’s mouth. She teased and explored deeply and Joy’s hand came to grip her short hair when finally she decided to finish up by sucking at her clit viciously.

“Oh… Oh honey… _Jack_.”

Joy’s thighs pressed closer around Strangelove’s ears, and this was exactly where everything was right and everything belonged.

Strangelove wanted to take care of Joy. Like a fool, she never grew out of devotion.


End file.
